Our Entitled World: In Order to Have What You Want, There's a PRICE!

I'm always amazed by the sheer number of people in the world who feel somehow "entitled" to having this, that and the other... for no greater reason than being alive and breathing.

The entire notion that in order for someone to have something they want or desire, they will have to give up something else (money, time, their soul)... seems to have grown more and more alien, somehow... we just want outcomes and seem increasingly blind to the fact that there a "something" between the beginning and the end.

As a sort of blatantly gross example, we might spend several years sitting in front of our screens, eating delivery pizza, munching on chips, drinking soda and not moving... but when we suddenly decide to "lose weight and get in shape," we expect three weeks of healthy eating and going to the gym to magically rid us of 30 lbs of flab!

Or you might take something like a person getting a job, and definitely being a decent enough employee, but then feeling the need to quit and go to work for a different company because they weren't made Divison President after just one year! Or less...

What the føck reality did you just drop in from???

On a more civic and political level, we expect the people in government to fix the damn roads and boost the economy and build a new civic center while at the same time we also demand that they lower our taxes!

How the føcking føck is that equation supposed to work???

I guess the sphere — at least for me — where this sort of "entitlement" manifests in the most nefarious way is when it comes to those who are overly protective of their so-called "rights and freedoms."

There are certainly genuine hard-working idealists out there, but for the most part, people seem to support causes and movements "in name only," clamoring to get — or maintain — their freedoms, while expressing that it is an infringement on THEIR freedoms if other people have the audacity to turn around insist on having their version of "freedom."

That sounds an awful lot like people wanting to have the freedom to dish it out, but they want to be protected from others disagreeing with them!

Pardon me, while I pour myself a fresh cup of hypocrisy...

Follow The Money!

That's one of the few truisms I remembered and have kept in mind ever since my college daze: to set aside your personal opinions, biases and feelings about things when you want to get to the roots of a situation... and instead look at who benefits financially from holding tight to a particular opinion or belief.

And I'm talking a deep excavation, not just scratching around on the surface for some easy-fix type answers. When you do get down to those lower levels it so often turns out that people are more motivated by money than by their ideals and principles."

It seems to work on almost all levels. Even those who are cavalier about "not caring about money" usually speak those words from a perch where they don't have to worry about money. People who want to tear down a particular system are seldom dependent on that system for their survival.

Intangibles — Truth Has Consequences

I remember being fairly young when my dad passed along a particular piece of wisdom: "Don't ask pointed questions demanding TRUTH unless you're prepared and willing to HEAR that truth!"

Choices have consequences. When we take "action X" we tend to end up with "outcome Y." There's an intangible price there, too. If you throw rocks at a wasps' nest — knowing what wasps are, and that they sting — you can't expect to magically be entitled to not getting stung. And yet that seems to happen quite often, and it seems like yet another part of the "entitlement issue."

Perhaps you are entitled to having an idea (which you probably think is good) but that doesn't mean you're entitled to have anyone share the perception that it's a good idea.

And yes, it definitely is possible to have nobody except you think that an idea is worth shit! I've experienced that, many a time!

How Much Are You Willing to Pay?

The "price" of alternative thinking, pioneering and innovation is often extremely high.

When I started one of my businesses back in 1985 — an unusual hybrid import-export gig that was a bit like a brick-and-mortar frontrunner to what eBay became online — I could not get a business loan no matter how hard I tried.

I even had several "well meaning" bankers try to persuade me to scrap the idea and promised they would loan me money to start a video store instead, because everyone was doing that at the time, and people "knew what that was."

I'm glad I chose not to start a video stores, because video stores went the way of the dodo bird, long before I closed my business. But the cost of sticking to my (alternative) guns and idea was that the business was chronically underfunded for its entire life.

But I never felt that I was entitled to be given money for uncharted territory...

Thanks for reading, and have a great Independence Day weekend!

How about YOU? Does it seem like the world grows more and more entitled? Are we always looking for the "easy button," even where none exist? Comments, feedback and other interaction is invited and welcomed! Because — after all — SOCIAL content is about interacting, right? Leave a comment — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!

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Created at 20210704 00:11 PDT
0289/1532